Bobby Banas, who played Jets member Joyboy in 1961’s West Side Story, appeared in other film musicals and had a long career as a choreographer, died Monday. He was 90.
His official Instagram account posted the news but did not provide other details. “Fly on, Joyboy,” it read in part. “I know the dance party up above is going to be amazing.”
Born on September 22, 1933, in New York City, Bobby Banas performed as Kangaroo in the original 1954 Broadway production of Peter Pan before landing dancer roles in such film musicals as The King and I and Carousel and the early rock ‘n’ roll pic Rock Around the Clock, all in 1956. He went on to work in The Girl Most Likely, Damn Yankees, Li’l Abner and a TV production of Annie Get Your Gun later that decade.
Bobby Banas most famous role would come in the Best Picture Oscar-winning musical West Side Story, playing the Jets’ Joyboy. The character didn’t have many lines but was a part of big dance numbers including “Cool” and “Gee Officer Krupke,” in which he sings, “The trouble is he drinks!” The pic directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise won 10 Academy Awards in 1962.
Bobby Banas would appear in other 1960s big-screen musicals including Bye Bye Birdie, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Mary Poppins, but it was about that time that his choreography career took center stage.
He was the choreographer and main dancer in a 1964 segment of The Judy Garland Show that featured his take on the Nitty Gritty, inspired by Shirley Ellis’ top 10 hit. Banas stole the show from five others with an alternately jerky and slinky dance that helped drive his career second act as a choreographer. Eventually the camera tightened up on him as someone in the control room likely instructed. The clip was was posted in the early 2010s on YouTube, and went viral. Watch it here:
In a 2013 interview, Banas was asked whether he was surprised by the popularity of his Nitty Gritty dance. “I can’t beleive what has happened with the ‘Nitty Gritty’ clip,” he said.
“Several years ago a friend said he had a copy that he found somewhere. He gave me one, I looked at it and put it away. I didn’t think it was anything to get that excited about, and that was that. Then I guess someone else found a copy, and posted it on YouTube. Then someone else posted it on Facebook, and the sh*t hit the fan. I was getting email and calls and questions about who was which dancer besides me, and all types of remarks wanting to know what type of dance it was. Yes, it was my choreography and my own interpretation of the song. Peter Gennaro was the choreographer for Garland, but he had to go to New York that week for some reason and his assistant didn’t have any idea what to do with the tune, so the director asked me to come up with a dance and that was the result.”
From the Garland show, Banas went on to other TV work including The Jonathan Winters Shows, Shiveree, and, in the 1980s, Mork and Mindy and films Heart Like a Wheel, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Under the Boardwalk, Always and others.